Titan King: Ascension of the Giant

Chapter 1422: Prison of the Deep

"It was Leonidas’s acting. Absolutely atrocious."

The Witch’s voice dripped with amusement. "Did he really think masking his soul aura and dropping his voice an octave would fool me? You can change your face, but you can’t change your cadence. Old habits die hard."

Heh heh heh...

Her laughter was uninhibited, mocking. She had clocked Leonidas the moment she made contact with the Atlantis forces for the third time.

"I’m afraid I can’t stay and play," she purred, her form beginning to blur. "My avatar is expensive to replace, you see."

Before Kraken could even twitch, she vanished.

The Witch was paranoid by nature. She had prepped an escape vector the moment the atmosphere shifted.

"Situation has changed. I’ll explain later."

Orion wasn’t surprised Kraken failed to hold her. The Witch was suppressed, yes, but she was slippery. Orion had only sent Kraken after her because, under the Dead Sea’s law, a full-strength Kraken had a mathematical guarantee of victory—if she stayed to fight.

Orion reached out, pressing a finger against Kraken’s forehead. He transferred his Demigod soul projection into the mermaid’s mindscape.

The moment the transfer was complete, Orion’s Abyssal Dreadfin vessel let out a thunderous roar. He ripped open a teleportation scroll, space warping around him.

"Get back to Atlantis!"

With that final command, Orion vanished from the Silverwood Realm.

Kraken blinked, dazed. The order echoed in his ears, but his brain took a solid minute to reboot.

What just happened?

Why did Leonidas and Orion both bail?

Despite the confusion, his trust in his sworn brothers was absolute. He signaled the retreat to the Atlantean forces and turned tail, swimming hard away from the battlefield.

Moments after Kraken departed, a massive, spectral projection of a God materialized above the ocean surface.

It radiated blinding holy light, a beacon meant to recall the souls of the Cult of Four and their surviving Paladins.

But the Dead Sea was jealous.

The black ocean surged, whipping up a wave that defied physics. It crashed into the spectral God, shattering the projection into motes of light and severing the Cult’s extraction ritual.

The Cult of Four’s expeditionary force was trapped.

The ocean wasn’t just water anymore; it was a domain. The Cetus Giants had unleashed the Dead Sea, expanding their territory and rewriting the laws of physics within it. They had purged the outsiders, but in doing so, they had sealed themselves in.

The Dead Sea rejects the foreign.

But the Sea Folk who leave the water shall die.

That was the law of this Divine Kingdom.

A Divine Kingdom was a construct of a Fourth-Stage Demigod, supported by a Divine Calling and absolute laws. When the Dead Sea merged with the Moon Sea, it was effectively a Fourth-Stage entity claiming the entire ocean as its personal backyard.

With the holy projection destroyed, the surface of the sea fell into an eerie, unnatural calm.

But beneath the waves, in the crushing dark, the war raged on. The Cult of Four had deep reserves. Even suppressed, they wouldn’t go down without bleeding the Cetus Giants dry. And the Giants, driven by the collective will of their race, wouldn’t stop until every drop of foreign blood was spilled.

Emerald Dream Realm, Leonidas’s Palace.

When Orion’s Abyssal Dreadfin avatar materialized, he found Leonidas and Kraken—or rather, Kraken’s secondary avatar—already lounging on the terrace, drinks in hand.

"Hulk, you weren’t suppressed. Why did you run?"

Leonidas tossed a goblet of wine through the air. Orion caught it effortlessly, shrinking his massive form down to human size and collapsing onto a sun lounger.

"Don’t ask. That Divine Kingdom dropped a new rule: ’Leave the sea, and you die,’" Orion grumbled, taking a long pull of the wine. "I only have one aquatic avatar. I wasn’t about to get it geolocked to Atlantis forever."

Orion had escaped in the narrow window before the rule fully calcified over the realm. Any later, and his Dreadfin form would have been stuck.

"Is it really a Divine Kingdom?" Leonidas asked, swirling his wine. He sounded skeptical—not of Orion, but of the concept. Leonidas hadn’t reached the Fourth Stage yet. While his World Dragon avatar had its own pocket dimension, he hadn’t refined it into a true Kingdom. The mechanics were still a mystery to him.

"Wait," Kraken cut in, his eyes widening. "Orion... are you saying my main body is trapped in Current’s Bend for life?"

The realization finally hit him. He looked from Orion to Leonidas with a mix of horror and disbelief.

"Relax, Squid," Leonidas laughed, slapping his knee. "That’s just your tentacle avatar. It’s a renewable resource. If it dies, it dies."

"We’re all family here. Take one for the team, yeah? Hahaha!"

Leonidas roared with laughter. Orion shrugged, unapologetic. That had indeed been the plan: leave the soul projection inside Kraken’s main body to maintain control, while getting the valuable Dreadfin asset to safety.

"Orion, that’s dirty!" Kraken feigned outrage, though his relief that his core self was safe here in the Dream Realm was palpable.

"What? You don’t want Current’s Bend anymore?" Orion teased.

"Uh... well, obviously I want it," Kraken stammered. For someone trying to stockpile enough resources to ascend to Demigod status, a territory like Current’s Bend was impossible to give up.

"Orion," Kraken said, his tone shifting to serious. "Can we actually hold it?"

Orion downed the rest of his wine and leaned back, soaking in the mild sunlight of the Dream Realm.

"With my soul projection inside you, as long as none of the three Cetus Demigods breaks through to the Second Stage, we hold the territory," Orion said lazily, eyes closed. "Of course, there’s a tax. Half the Faith Energy you harvest in Atlantis goes to feeding my soul projection."

Kraken’s face split into a wide, servile grin.

"Deal! Here, Orion, let me top that off for you. Have some grilled fish, I just made it!"

Kraken scurried over to refill Orion’s cup.

In reality, the retreat was a handover. Leonidas and Orion had effectively gifted Atlantis to Kraken. Since they couldn’t manage it remotely, the split of Faith Energy was entirely up to Kraken’s conscience.

Leonidas, being Kraken’s mentor, wouldn’t take a cut. Orion asking for fifty percent to maintain the defense system was essentially a dividend payment.

"Right then," Leonidas stretched, his joints popping like firecrackers. "Time for some R&R. I’m going to find a nice cave and sleep for a few decades."

Currently inhabiting a World Dragon, when Leonidas said "nap," he meant hibernation.

"Brother, I don’t think you’ll be getting much sleep," Orion said.

He pulled two crystal orbs from his spatial storage and tossed them to Leonidas and Kraken.

"This is the world of Eldoria. I’ve already established a foothold there."

Orion sat up, a gleam in his eye. "According to my intel, there’s a massive ocean there, too."

"I won’t bore you with the details, but there’s enough water for the three of us to carve it up evenly."

In truth, the ocean was the only piece of the pie Orion could offer them right now, but it was a big pie.